17 Motorway Landscapes proposes a relational and processual re-mapping of the E17 as it crosses the south of West Flanders in Belgium. Motorways are usually conceived, perceived and most often mapped as alien elements superimposed on the territory. To be able – at least partially – to break free from this settled cartographic orthodoxy, the re-mapping of the motorway follows three specific strategies of cartographic exploration. First of all, the motorway landscape is cartographically de- and recomposed according to a relational rather than to a topographical logic, thereby revealing alternative measures of rhythm and contextual reinterpretations of scale. Second, the motorway landscape is mapped as a process by incorporating the previous state of the selected elements into the maps and by furthermore stressing their transformations in relation to the E17. Lastly, the motorway landscape is reimagined as a thick, albeit fragmented body, by means of a content-specific symbolization scheme, designed to reflect attunement and relationality between different object categories. @en

This paper presents the process and the results of a cartographic exploration on the interactions between the military and the civil society. It features two interrelated study-cases : the cities of Skopje and Bitola, both characterised by consequent periods of war and strong army presence. Frequent and often abrupt changes of occupying military power combined with the local effects of ever-evolving military strategy, altogether having a dramatic impact upon their urban landscapes and the overall territorial settings. The proposed method of exploration includes the study and processing of archival sources as well as the creation of novel interpretative maps. The former includes a critical analysis of historical and contemporary cartographies, taking into account the specific agency of mapping and its embedded politics. As for the later, two series of eight maps each are created, offering a dia-chronic as well as a synchronic reading of the history of the local militarised landscapes. Through the simultaneous deconstruction of archival maps and the construction of interpretative maps, the research approaches the interaction of the military and the city in a twofold way: on the one hand revealing process of appropriation through the act of mapping-in which the specific agency of the military plays a significant role, and on the other hand constructing a palimpsests of urban and territorial army-related narratives that enables the formation and transmission of the city's memory.@en